Barca News
Pep Guardiola has been nominated as the media manager to lead Barcelona next season, succeeding Xavi Hernandez, who previously announced that he would leave the Catalan club at the end of the current season after a series of poor results.
Barcelona is intensifying the search for a new technical director, as Joan Laporta, club president, and Deco, sporting director, have drawn up a list of potential coaches that includes Hansi Flick and Joachim Loew, in addition to Jurgen Klopp, despite the difficulty of contracting with him because he decided to take a break for a year.
But there is another name strongly nominated to succeed Xavi, which is the Italian coach, Roberto De Zerbe, the current coach of the English club Brighton, and he is the coach that Guardiola has already nominated to take over the job, according to what Radio Catalunya reported.
Guardiola was full of praise for De Zerbe during his time at Brighton. Last May, he described him as “one of the most influential coaches of the last 20 years.”
The City coach also continued to speak in glowing terms about the style of football presented by the Italian coach and his team.
De Zerbe’s name has been mentioned increasingly this week as speculation begins to mount around Barcelona’s next manager. There is no doubt that the Italian has impressed at Brighton, but it may not be easy to tempt him away from the Premier League club.
Brighton have already made clear they do not want him to leave, while De Zerbe is believed to have a €15m (£12.8m) release clause in his contract. Bayern Munich are also said to be considering De Zerbe as a potential replacement for Thomas Tuchel, and Liverpool have also been linked with a move for the Italian.
Both clubs are also expected to make a move to sign Bayer Leverkusen coach Xabi Alonso, meaning an interesting managerial market awaits us this summer.
